Worst Industrial Chemical Disaster in the world - Bhopal, India

Bhopal is a city in the heart of India. It had a Union Carbide plant that manufactures the pesticide Sevin using Methyl IsoCynate(MIC). The chemical MIC was stored in large tanks, and there were 6 safety features that were supposed to keep the chemicals from spilling over into adjacent communities. On the night of December 2, 1984, water somehow flowed into the MIC holding tanks causing a reaction that would blow the tank and release 40 metric tonnes of MIC into the atmosphere. All the six safety features failed to contain the release of gas. The poisonous MIC gas escaped killing many thousands of people.

People were sleeping when the gas was released and they were woken up by coughing. The emergency workers lacked information or knowledge on what to do urged people to flee, but were not given a direction in which to flee. Many ended up fleeing towards the Chemical plant that was spewing MIC.

The acute symptoms were burning in the respiratory tract and eyes, blepharospasm, breathlessness, stomach pains and vomiting. The causes of deaths were choking, reflexogenic circulatory collapse and pulmonary oedema. Findings duringautopsies revealed changes not only in the lungs but also cerebral oedema, tubular necrosis of the kidneys, fatty degeneration of the liver and necrotising enteritis. The stillbirth rate increased by up to 300% and neonatal mortality rate by around 200%.

When MIC was released, the best emergency protection was to lie down on the floor, with a wet piece of cloth covering your head and face. This critical piece of information was not available to the people in Bhopal or the emergency workers. This information would have saved thousands of lives but was unavailable at that time. The world's worst chemical disaster would have been minimized had people known that information in time.

Critical life saving information provided at the right time to the affected people, will save lives. Hazard Networking lets emergency coordinators in various industries, storing hazardous materials, provide critical life saving information before an industrial accident happens. This timely and actionable information will automatically be released to the population and can save their lives.